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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Saint-Saëns: Piano Quartet & Piano Quintet
Saint-Saëns holds a vital place in the history of French chamber music. At a time when his compatriots were more devoted to opera and song, Saint-Saëns (who wrote both, too) repeatedly produced chamber music of compelling individuality and lasting significance. The 1875 Piano Quartet in B flat major, Op. 41 remains one of the great works in the chamber repertory, a masterful example of the composer’s organisational skill and lyric gifts. The gorgeous Barcarolle is followed by the youthful Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 14, a brilliantly confident work with a concerto-like rôle for the piano. “A gorgeous programme of Saint-Saëns’ beguiling chamber music played with great authority and flair.” MusicWeb International, 26th April 2013 “The performances could hardly be more finely attuned to the technical challenges, while the composer's own booklet-notes set the scene succinctly...As a 'feast for the senses', Whalley's music demonstrably has much to recommend it.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2013 | 
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| |  | Saint-Saëns - Chamber Music
Saint-Saëns: | Septet in E flat major for piano, trumpet, 2 violins, viola, cello and double bass Op. 65 Tarantelle in A minor for flute, clarinet & piano/orchestra Op. 6 Bassoon Sonata in G major, Op. 168 Piano Quartet in B flat major, Op. 41 Piano Quintet in A minor Op. 14 Oboe Sonata in D major Op. 166 Clarinet Sonata in E flat major, Op. 167 Caprice sur des airs danois et russes for piano, flute, oboe and clarinet Op. 79 |
“Saint-Seëns in full vigour and mastery - a wonderful pair of discs” BBC Music Magazine, 1st July 2008 “Saint-Saëns's chamber music fares better in the concert hall than the recording studio, perhaps because musicians tend to listen less to academic name-calling ('conservative', 'too prolific') than to the music itself. The three late wind sonatas in particular have received far fewer recordings than their status as repertoire staples deserves.
Try the kinky-Baroque first movement of the Oboe Sonata, jauntily phrased by Gareth Hulse, or the animato second of the Clarinet Sonata, garbed in rich Mozartian cloth by Richard Hosford.
The Bassoon Sonata is notable for its fresh and gentle wit and skirting of cliché: Ursula Leveaux does it proud, with especially luscious tone in the opening Allegretto.
Surprises are fewer in the earlier works, but none is less than,'finely put together' to echo Ravel's assessment. Hummability quotient is high in the Piano Quartet and Quintet, and off the scale in the Septet. The late Lionel Salter used to complain in Gramophone that recordings of the Septet tend to sound like a trumpet concerto; not this one. If you employ hit artists like Maurice André they will tend to hog the microphone but, happily, Mark David is a more sensitive soul who's fully imbibed the Nash's joyous spirit of corporate music-making, and Hyperion's engineers have placed him at a respectable distance. If anything it's Ian Brown's piano that takes centre-stage, and that's no bad thing, except in the extensive fugal finales to the Piano Quartet and Quintet where Saint-Saëns, most unusually, seems to over-run himself. The Caprice and Tarantelle, for all Philippa Davies's sparkling contributions, perhaps bear fewer repetitions, but the set is really sheer delight: let's hear it for imaginative conservatism.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010  BBC Music Magazine
Chamber Choice - July 2005 |
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| |  | Saint-Saëns: Concertos
Saint-Saëns: | Le carnaval des animaux Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33 Paul Tortelier (cello) Septet in E flat major for piano, trumpet, 2 violins, viola, cello and double bass Op. 65 Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5 Aldo Ciccolini (piano) Piano Quintet in A minor Op. 14 Etude en forme de valse Op. 52 No. 6 Aldo Ciccolini (piano) Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Major Op. 20 Ulf Hoelscher (violin) Violin Concerto No. 2 in C Major Op. 58 Ulf Hoelscher (violin) Etude en forme de valse Op. 52 No. 6 Romance in C major, Op. 48, for violin and orchestra Ulf Hoelscher (violin) Romance in D flat major, Op. 37 Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Op. 61 Ulf Hoelscher (violin) La Muse et le Poète, Op. 132 Havanaise, Op. 83 Morceau de concert in G major, Op. 62, for violin and orchestra Introduction & Rondo capriccioso, Op. 28 Ulf Hoelscher (violin) Caprice andalou, Op. 122 Prélude to Le Deluge Op. 45 |
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